I opened my eyes to a very bright room. Windows lined the wall in front of me to reveal the same jungle-like scene from when I was last awake. My back is pressed into a somewhat comfortable mattress, which I realize I am handcuffed to. The room is very empty, with the exception of a piano to my right and a small box on the ground to my left. My stomach growls, my legs ache to the bone, my wrists are chafed and bleeding, and my tongue feels like a paperweight in my mouth. As soon as I move my head, the cuffs snap open. It takes all my strength and willpower to sit up. The box made a small noise. When I tried to walk towards it, my legs immediately gave out and I crashed to the floor. My head rang, but I crawled my way to the box. A red bow tied it shut. I pulled it undone and cautiously lifted up the lid.

Inside was a small Oriole bird. As soon as it saw the light, it flew to the other side of the room. Finding nowhere for it to hide, it hopped under the piano and watched me curiously.

…I am so confused. I thought Nekozawa said these people tortured others? I'm not really being tortured yet- I'm just hungry and thirsty. But they gave me a piano, and a bird for some reason. Am I supposed to eat the bird? Not gonna do that. Do I have the strength to play the piano? No, but I'm gonna do it anyways.

I still couldn't pick myself up, so I sort of crawled to the piano and pulled my body onto the bench. Very good condition, a Kawai. Two sheets of music rested against the stand. I recognized the piece almost immediately as Gabriel Faure's "Lux Aeterna" from the Requiem. What a beautiful piece. I had no idea where Nekozawa was, what I was doing here, if I was supposed to serve some purpose, if we would live, but I didn't care. "This is one of the most beautiful Requiems in history," I told the bird who hopped around a ways from me. "He also wrote a fantastic flute piece. I've played both. I'll start this from the beginning for you."

So even though my body wanted to curl into a ball of pain, I forced my fingers to begin the piece. The longer I played, the closer the bird hopped to me. It almost seemed like it was listening intently to the piano. I forgot my hunger and aches and lost myself in the music, swaying with the intensity and recalling the choir in my mind. Soon I made it to the "Lux Aeterna". I ignored the pages and played from memory, my eyes shut in concentration.

The bird began chirping. In my exhausted state, I swore I could hear the Soprano melody in its chirping. My eyes opened when I felt little claws on my arm. The bird had perched itself there and was singing its heart out to the actual Soprano part. I didn't know how it was happening, but it just made me incredibly happy. I smiled and played a little softer to clearly hear the bird. It sang all the way through the movement and when it was done, fluttered up to my shoulder. I stopped playing and reached a hand up to touch the orange feathers. Surprisingly it leaned into my touch, then flapped onto my head where it nestled into my hair.

I've made a new friend, apparently.

Over the next few days the bird began learning the rest of the Soprano part to the entire piece. I would whistle as I played, and the Oriole would repeat. Eventually he acquired a name: Dilbert. Not my finest, but for starving and dehydrating for multiple days I'd say that's pretty good. Once we completed the "Requiem", we moved onto other things. Soon we played all kinds of jigs and wonderful Romantic pieces. Sometimes it would fly around the room while singing, other times it sat on my shoulder or head. Other than the piano playing with the bird, my time in captivity was rather dull. I woke from quick and dreamless naps to find a bowl of thick soup and a glass of water- just enough to keep me alive. The bird got a small bowl of seeds and some water as well. I got bored pretty fast. I mean, the piano is there, but where is Nekozawa? Where are the people who caught us? When does the torture begin? Because this isn't too shabby. I already tried breaking the window with the piano bench. Didn't work. Probably bulletproof. The only door out was locked from the outside, with no handle for me to use.

One day I woke up from a nap that I had originally taken on the floor. But when I opened my eyes, I realized I lay strapped to the cot. I also realized my cot was no longer stationed in the piano room. Instead I was in some kind of laboratory in which two men in white doctor's robes and masks examined clipboards and oddly-coloured liquid in clear test tubes. Ughhh, my head is woozy. The lights seemed so bright in this white room. When I tried to ask what was going on, my mouth opened slowly but my tongue refused to move. It lay there like a beached whale. Two tubes connected from my arm to different bags hanging on the wall. They either didn't notice or didn't care that I had woken up. My limbs were like logs of lead.

One of them walked to me and leaned to pull something from under the table. His hands came back with a small clear box. In it lay Dilbert, either unconscious or dead. I hoped it was the former. Its little feathers sat still on its curled up body, not reacting at all to the movement of the box. Why would they do this? What happened? My eyes welled up in tears, but my body refused to do anything to show my sadness.

I'm so hungry and tired and now the only thing that was keeping my spirit alive is dead and I have no idea if Nekozawa is alright. I just want to go back to school, where my worst troubles were keeping up a scholarship and making friends and turning into a rabbit for a couple of hours.

I was wheeled back into my piano room, unstrapped, and left to myself. The bird box and food bowl were gone, a reminder of the absence of my new best friend. It still took me a very long time for my limbs to work again. I sat up slowly against the aching resistance of my body and wiped away tears. Screw these… weird scientist wizard people.

On the floor near me sat another bowl of soup and some water. Right next to it was a small plate of bird seed. Are they trying to mess with me emotionally? I sniffled some more, but as I did so my stomach grumbled. Now, here's the weird part: my stomach didn't grumble when I looked at the soup. I mean, it did. But it also grumbled when I saw the bird food. Normally that didn't happen, even when my hunger was nearly unbearable and Dilbert was eating his food. But now I really really wanted to eat it, almost as much as the soup. Am I going crazy? Is this some sort of way my brain thinks it should deal with the loss of Dilbert? I loved him and all, but this seems a bit extreme.

I ate the soup and ignored the seeds. Once I was done my stomach still growled, but I ignored it and played the piano some more. A few minutes passed.

Then, I'm ashamed to say, I ate the bird seed.